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A Conference on Early Modern Images Department of History of Art, UCL. Saturday 2 May 2015
"Admiring one's own face is most easy. To know one's internal self always has been reputed to be difficult."
Ulisse Aldrovandi (Italian naturalist, 1522-1605)
The tragedy of Narcissus was his failure to recognise the image he admired on the surface of the pool as his own. His fate might have improved, had he possessed the deeper self-knowledge implied by the Delphic maxim, "know thyself." The question prompted by Narcissus, of how images pertain to self-knowledge, is especially relevant to the Early Modern period, during which the ancient aphorism nosce te ipsum was engaged provocatively in a range of visual material: it is quoted in illustrations of anatomy, natural history and cartography, and evoked in religious and secular works of art. This renewed cultural imperative to self-knowledge is bound up with the scientific and technological advancements of the period. It is epitomised by the technical refinement of the looking glass, which enabled a person to admire - or better, scrutinise - her own face with unprecedented clarity.
The premise of this conference is that consideration of the Delphic maxim can be productively channelled into interrogating the role of the image in relation to the self: How might images mobilise the philosophical challenge to "know thyself"? What are the mechanisms within images that invite participation in the practices of self-discovery and self-representation?
Speakers include: Anita Sganzerla (The Courtauld Institute); James Hall (Independent scholar); Rebecca Whiteley (UCL); Rosemary Moore (UCL); Thalia Allington-Wood (UCL); Alexandra Marraccini (University of Chicago); Radu Leca (SOAS, University of London); Nathanael Price (UCL).